CAST Type System
Kyuta Sato
Project Components: Processing, Identity, Type Design.
CAST is The Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies at Caltech. It’s a place where scientists, students, and researchers from Caltech and JPL come together to define a new vision for researching autonomous systems, from basic science, to creating applications. In the CAST logo, each small square represents an autonomous agent. The mark reflects the collective nature of the scientific community. The modular system is flexible and dynamic, allowing opportunities for interaction. The CAST Type System, which is based on the custom typeface drawn for the logo, visualizes autonomous systems by generating letters from autonomous agents as the user types. Letters are input from a keyboard and are drawn by agents flocking to form each letter as it’s typed by the user.
View the rest of the project: Caltech and CAST identity.
CAST Maze Solver
Kyuta Sato
Project Components: Processing, Installation, Identity.
CAST is The Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies at Caltech. It’s a place where scientists, students, and researchers from Caltech and JPL come together to define a new vision for researching autonomous systems, from basic science, to creating applications. The CAST Maze Solver is an interactive installation that shows how an algorithm can be used to solve a maze. The user can design a maze by generating a series of randomly placed walls, with the ability to add their own by placing a series of blocks within the maze. The agent detects the position of the walls, the goal, and the blocks in real time, and makes decisions based on the underlying algorithm.
View the rest of the project: Caltech and CAST identity.
ALGO Typeface
Annie Kwon
Project Components: Processing, Geomerative, Type Design.
An algorithm is a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer. ALGO is a modular typeface with algorithmic aesthetics. The design process started by creating a set of geometric letterforms that act as the exoskeleton for the typeface. The curves and shape of the letterforms are generated by plotting points around the perimeter of the type and connecting sets of points to each other with straight lines. On each letterform’s corners, the lines are formed based on geometric envelope curves.
AURA Typeface
Sarah Park
Project Components: Processing, Minim, Sound, Installation, Type Design.
AURA is an acronym for Abstract Ultrasonic Radio Assembly. AURA focuses on the experience of music that can be felt through beats, rhythms, and vibrations. Aura supports artists who yearn to experiment with a new approach to music. The identity of Aura was inspired by the tangible characteristics of music beats and vibrations. The custom typeface has been designed to be responsive and activated by music. To achieve this, the typeface was put into code and synced with music so that it responds to the beat/vibration of the music. Over the course of a song or performance, the typeface will shift, grow, and expand according to its perception of the music.
View the rest of the project: BRIC and AURA identity.
Echo Chamber
Danny Gray
Project Components: Processing, Randomness, Instagram.
Echo Chamber looks at post-digital design through the lens of Instagram and the consumption of quick visuals. It aims to decode design trends in the graphic design zeitgeist, analyze them, and ultimately critique them. Utilizing Processing, Echo Chamber creates posters that mimic the Instagram graphic language within set parameters. As the code is able to generate countless posters of the same style, it speaks to the lack of uniqueness found on social media, specifically within certain design communities. The code features multiple arrays that hold visual banks of elements pulled from the graphic language found on Instagram. It then calls a selection of these elements at random, and pieces them back together to generate new poster compositions.
Double Slit Generator
Kenny Kuh
Project Components: Processing, Book, Identity.
The Double Slit Generator and The Color Keyboard are part of an installation for the launch party of the book God Does Not Play Dice. These pieces generate different music, sounds, and visuals, creating an immersive experience for the visitors while visualizing concepts and themes present in the book. The Double Slit Generator is a different interpretation of the original double-slit experiment through code. Instead of shooting protons out into slits to create a wave pattern, the user can generate a wave-particle duality pattern by typing. Each letter (A-Z) is assigned an amount of rippling waves, with A having the most and Z having the least. A particle is generated each time two waves intersect, creating a pattern that demonstrates wave-particle duality.
View the rest of the project here: God Does Not Play Dice.
The Color Keyboard
Kenny Kuh
Project Components: Processing, Minim, Sound, Book, Identity.
The Double Slit Generator and The Color Keyboard are part of an installation for the launch party of the book God Does Not Play Dice. These pieces generate different music, sounds, and visuals, creating an immersive experience for the visitors while visualizing concepts and themes present in the book. In The Color Keyboard, users play sound by typing on their keyboard. They can tune and detune the sound by dragging across the x-axis of the screen. The frequency of the sound is determined by how frequently the letter appears within the typed content. When the "Party Switch" is toggled on, the sound changes to playing a series of MP3 files that are mapped to the keys using the Minim sound library. The color for each block is generated by mapping the alphabet across the RGB color spectrum.
View the rest of the project: God Does Not Play Dice.
LA Philharmonic
Abigail Dergazarian
Project Components: Processing, Kinect, OpenCV, Sound, Installation, Identity.
Classical music formed as a genre around the 1600s. As it evolved, the number of musicians participating has increased, leading to the creation of the role of conductor. Conductors use batons as a way to enlarge and enhance their physical movement. A baton properly used is an instrument of meaning, its movements convey musical concepts to those who utilize it to create sound. This interactive installation at the LA Philharmonic utilizes Processing’s sound library as well as a Kinect sensor to capture a user's hand movements in order to emulate a conductor's baton movement. When a user waves their hand over a date on the canvas, a hot spot is triggered that plays the coinciding musical piece being performed on that date. Visuals giving more context about the performer as well as the full title of the song are also projected into the space.
View the rest of the project: LA Philharmonic identity.
DMZ Installation
Annie Kwon
Project Components: Processing, Installation, Sound, Type Design.
DMZ: Life Under the Shadow of Gun, is a research-based book about the Demilitarized Zone in Korea. It has been a place of conflict and hostility, however, it is also a place where all kinds of life, especially plant life, can thrive. The concept for the installation is to demonstrate how the biodiversity of the DMZ is flourishing due to the absence of humans by creating a piece that can’t be viewed up close. A map is projected on the floor that tracks the position of the viewer, showing the distance between the DMZ and the viewer. When the viewer gets closer to the DMZ, the sounds of the DMZ and letters “DMZ" get silent and unreadable. The key elements that are forming the letters are based on marks from the map. The code randomly picks from eight key elements to form the letters “DMZ". The number of elements decreasing/increasing and the sounds decreasing/increasing depend on the person’s movement, while the coordinate projection tracks where the viewer is standing and shows them the coordinates of their location.
View the rest of the project: DMZ: Life Under the Shadow of a Gun.
Digital Diddley
Rolando Castillo
Project Components: Processing, Arduino, Sound, Type Design, Identity.
Digital Diddley is an interactive audio/visual installation that lives at the “Electro Blues Fest". The project merges blues traditions with modern technology, paying homage to the “Bottle Neck” technique used by early bluesmen. The installation consists of three parts: a geometric typeface inspired by slab serif typefaces of the 1920s, software written in Processing that is projected in the space, and custom built Digital Diddley made with an Arduino that connects to Processing. Attendees will be able to play the Digital Diddley it like an instrument, while generating sound and manipulating the projected type with their movement.
BRIC Typeface
Sarah Park
Project Components: Processing, Parametric Type Design.
The rebranding of BRIC, a Brooklyn based arts organization, was inspired by the unapologetic voice of the institution. The new identity is vocal, flexible, and active. The forms in the logo are highly responsive to their environment, much like the citizens of Brooklyn. The typeface was designed to stretch and get loud, filling the space of walls, booklets, websites, and posters. In order to achieve this, a typeface was designed that could be stretched along its x and y-axis. The type was then put into code to stretch proportionally, able to react to input like mouse movement, generating numerous iterations of each letterform, able to fill the space of applications across the identity system.
View the rest of the project: BRIC and AURA identity.